


i'm infected by my genetics

by moodorbs



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Trans David (Camp Camp), Trans Gwen (Camp Camp), Trans Max (Camp Camp), hrng poor boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodorbs/pseuds/moodorbs
Summary: honestly just a short vent fic. david gets his period and contemplates life.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	i'm infected by my genetics

**Author's Note:**

> what if you.....read my fic...........on ao3.....................and left a comment................................haha jk.........................unless???

some days david didn't get out of bed. his stomach hurt, caving on on itself like a cardboard box, crumpling him to his bed. it usually wasn't this bad. but his hair was getting long, and at lunch max had said he looked almost like a girl. the key word there was _almost_, but that didn't make it any better. it didn't change the fact that he felt sick whenever he looked down at his body, that when cramps overtook him he curled up in his comforter hugging his log to his chest, that when he saw red on his toilet paper he choked back sobs and went to find gwen. she understood. not entirely, but it was similar: the ways their bodies betrayed them, the tones of voice they used, the things they said and did and wore. no matter how perfectly coiffed, how plotted and planned, someone found out. someone always did. if they were lucky, it was someone like them. if not, well. the less said about that the better.

he's having one of his bad days now, the days when his body overtakes him, when it feels like he can barely breathe, when his torso is all knotted up and it feels as though all his muscles are flexing at once. he lays on his side, crooked arm supporting his head, and watches the scars on his arm move as he (deeply, slowly, intentionally) breathes in and out. there's a myriad of white lines, some deeper than the rest (the ones in the palms of his hands still ache sometimes, and when it gets too cold out his knuckles are hard to move, forbidding him from snowball fights lest others see his weakness), others hair-thin, delicate blink-and-you'll-miss-them souvenirs from days spent foraging wild berries in brush too thorny to tolerate (but necessity, as it always has, compelled him). he lies there for a moment, each scar catching his attention, pulling him into memories most of which he'd rather not have. 

they mock him, almost. _you've survived so much and look where you are now_, they seem to say. _laid up in bed like some sort of patient. someone who needs sympathy. and you don't need any sympathy, do you, davey? you haven't needed sympathy in a long time._ he takes the thoughts, redirects them like dr. gold told him to, because sympathy is not a bad thing! sympathy is how others know to help when you are in need of it (_but men never are_, whisper the voices in his head). sympathy is what david has too much of, what hurts him in the end, from searching for jasper (he still turns the channel when there's a bear on discovery) to talking to nurf (see palm scars, above). he can't turn it off, though, because it's an integral part of who he is. david the helper. david the healer. david the warrior, the survivor, the this and that and the other thing and all the labels he tries so hard to live up to.

right now he's not that david. right now he feels indescribably weak. he feels like someone could tip him over the chasm separating him from the visions that haunt him with nothing more than a feather. he feels like he is breaking in two, giving birth to a new man, someone who can replace him, do all the things he never could.

but his lunch break is over. so he puts on his smile, pops a motrin, and heaves himself up from his cozy nest to preen and cluck over children who will never thank him. _he does it for them_, he thinks. but they are him. nerris is exploring the same worlds he did, minus the terrible necessity of huddling quietly in the closet, waiting for a stepfather to come home. ered takes risks he never allowed himself the luxury of, glides off down the half-pipe and comes up the other side resplendent, confident in her own power. she grins and plays it off and david feels that where his soul makes its home, because they can't hurt you if you're on the top of the pecking order. they can't hurt you if they idolize you instead.

max is different. max was hurt more than david ever was. still, they are more alike than the boy realizes, david and his aching chest after hours of running around chasing near-feral children, max and the sweat staining the hoodie he refuses to part with. the only difference is that david shed his long ago. he shed it when he left the flower scouts, when he hacked off ginger pigtails with a pair of garden shears, when miss priss called his parents and exiled him because _your daughter wants to be a boy_. he'd grinned at that comment, and sure, his cheek hurt for days, but it was worth it because he was finally a camp campbell camper. he didn't have to wear a skirt, or any pink. he could dress how he wanted, do what he wanted. he could finally be himself.


End file.
